Update: Branstad knew of 'inappropriate actions' at Iowa Juvenile Home

Jul. 22, 2013

Gov. Terry Branstad said Monday morning that he only recently learned of the Iowa Juvenile Home’s long-standing practice of confining children to isolation cells for months at a time.

At the governor’s weekly press conference, Branstad was asked whether his office has requested information from the Iowa Department of Human Services as to the number of children placed in isolation. Branstad replied, “Well, we just became aware of this recently.”

Later Monday, his spokesman, Tim Albrecht, told the Register, “The governor’s office never had to request this information because DHS has been providing information on all DHS facilities, including the Iowa Juvenile Home, since the beginning of the administration.”

Asked whether that meant the governor had been given specific information on the number of children confined to isolation cells at the home, Albrecht said DHS routinely gives “general information” to the governor, and in this instance it had “outlined the inappropriate actions” at the juvenile home.

Asked when that happened, Albrecht said only, “The governor’s office works with DHS on a daily basis.”

He didn’t respond when asked for a specific date. The Register then filed an Open Records Law request for all communications from DHS to the governor’s office since Feb. 1 that pertain to the juvenile home.

Although the solitary confinement issue became public only this week, DHS has spent the past eight months responding to an investigation of the matter by Disability Rights Iowa, a federally funded organization that advocates for the disabled.

As the Register reported on Sunday, investigators toured the home last November and discovered three girls living separately in small, concrete-block “control rooms.” Two of the girls had been there for two months, and one had been there for close to a year, the organization says.

At his Monday news conference, Branstad said he feels the Iowa Department of Human Services and its director, Chuck Palmer, have addressed the matter.

“I think the department has taken the appropriate corrective action,” Branstad said. “The person in charge of the juvenile home has been replaced.”

Asked whether Deb Hanus, who resigned as superintendent of the home in February, had been asked to leave, Branstad said, “I don’t know the information on that. I don’t try to micro-manage departments and agencies. I do have confidence in Chuck Palmer and the Department of Human Services that they’ve done the appropriate and the right thing.”

Hanus has said her decision to retire was voluntary and that she was not encouraged to leave.

Palmer said last week that his agency still doesn’t know how many children were kept in isolation in 2011 and 2012, and that The Des Moines Register will have to pay the state $31,776 if it wants DHS to collect that information and make it public.

At his press conference, Branstad was asked whether the state shouldn’t be have that information for its own purposes.

“With regard to these records, I’m not familiar with that information,” he said. “I always come down on the side of making as much information available and accessible to the public (as we can), and at the lowest cost as possible. We do have the new Public Information Board, and I would certainly ask that the Public Information Board to look into this.”

Asked whether his own office had asked DHS for information on the number of children who had been placed in isolation, Branstad said, “Well, we just became aware of this recently. We obviously want to make sure the children of Iowa are protected and appropriate action is taken.

“Michael Bousselot is the staff person who serves as our liaison to the Department of Human Services. And he has assured me the department has taken the appropriate action to prevent these kinds of things from happening in the future.”

In January, Hanus and the home’s clinical director issued an internal report in which they said the facility had been relying “too heavily on the use of seclusion” that created an increased risk of serious injury and death, and that their seclusion policies and practices reflected a “poor standard of care.”

Palmer has said he’s not sure he agrees with that assessment. Asked what he thinks of the report’s findings, Branstad referred the question to Bousselot.

“What I think is important is that Chuck is working with leadership at the Iowa Juvenile Home to recognize that there was a practice going on that was inappropriate,” Bousselot said. “They identified that practice, they changed the leadership at that facility and they’ve also changed the practices and standard of care at that facility. They are moving forward with a solution that is implementing a high level of care for the troubled youth that are served at that home.”

“We’re believers in continuous improvement,” Branstad said. “We want to make sure everybody is treated with respect and dignity.”